"Thanks, my boy!" exclaimed the old man, who was bending over his gasoline tank. "Hullo!" he shouted suddenly. "I wasn't crazy! This boat was took out last night. See here!"

He held up the gasoline measuring stick which he had grabbed up and plunged into the tank. The instrument was almost dry. The receptacle for fuel was nearly empty.

"And I filled her before I started out!" thundered the captain.

"Whoever took my boat must have run her a long ways."

Fresh fuel was soon obtained, and the captain, after more shouted farewells, started for the island to try to obtain some clue to the mysterious happenings of the night.

Rob, after watching him for a few moments, as he sped down the blue waters of the sunlit inlet, turned away to return to his home, just recollecting that, in their eagerness to search for the boat, both he and the captain had entirely forgotten about breakfast. He was in the middle of the meal, and eagerly explaining to his interested parents the strange incidents of the missing boat and the decoy note, when Merritt Crawford burst into the room unannounced.

"Oh, I beg your pardon!" he apologized, abashed. "I didn't know you were at breakfast. But, Mr. Blake--Rob--something has happened that I just had to come and tell you about at once."

"Good gracious! More mysteries," Mr. Blake was beginning in a jocular way, when the serious look on the boy's face checked him. "What is it?

What has happened, Merritt?" he asked soberly, while Rob regarded the spectacle of his usually placid corporal's excitement with round eyes.

"The uniforms are all gone!" burst out Merritt.

"What uniforms?"

"Ours--the Eagle Patrols'."

"What! Stolen?"

"That's right," hurried on Merritt. "I met old Mrs. Jones in a terrible state of mind. You know, Mr. Blake, she's the old woman who scrubs out the place in the morning. I asked what was the matter, and she told me that when she went to the armory early to-day, she found the lock forced and all the lockers broken open and the uniforms gone!"

"Have you seen the place?" asked Mr. Blake.

"Yes, I followed her up. The room was turned upside down. The locks had been ripped right off and the lockers rifled of everything. Who can have done it?"

"I'll bet anything Jack Curtiss and his gang had something to do with it, just as I believe they put up some crooked job on the captain!"

burst out Rob, greatly excited and his breakfast entirely forgotten.

"Be careful how you make such a grave accusation," warned his father.

"I know it's a tough thing to say," admitted Rob; "but you don't know that bunch like we do. They'd--"

He was about to explain more of the characteristics of the bully and his cronies when a fresh interruption occurred. This time it was Hiram Nelson. He was almost as abashed as Merritt had been when he found that his excitement had carried him into what seemed a family conference.

"It's all right, Hiram. Come right in," said Mr. Blake cheerfully.

"Come on out with your news, for I can see you can hardly keep it to yourself."

"It's going round the town like wildfire!" responded the panting boy.

The others nodded. "I see you know it already," he went on. "Well, I think I've got a clue."

"You have! Come on, let's hear it quick," cried Rob.

"Well, I was up late with Paul Perkins last night, talking over the aeroplane model compet.i.tion, and didn't start home till about midnight.

As I was approaching the armory I thought I saw a light in one of the windows. I couldn't be certain, however, and I put it down to a trick that my eyes had played me."

"Well, that's all right as far as it goes," burst out Rob. "It probably was a light. I wish you'd investigated."

"Wait a minute, Rob," said his father, noting Hiram's anxious face.

"There's more to come, isn't there, Hiram?"

"You bet! The most exciting part of it--the most important, I mean,"

went on young Hiram, with an important air.

"Oh, well, get down to it," urged the impatient Rob. "What was it?"

"Why, right after I'd seen the light," went on Hiram, "I thought I saw a dark figure slip around the corner into that dark street."

"A dark figure! Hum! Sounds like one of those old yellow--back novels," remarked Mr. Blake, with a smile.

"But this was a figure I recognized, sir," exclaimed Hiram. "It was Bill Bender!"

"Jack Curtiss' chum! They're as thick as two thieves," burst out Merritt.

"And I believe they are two thieves," solemnly put in Rob.

"Well," went on Hiram, "the next minute Bill Bender came walking round the corner as fast as if he were coming from somewhere in a great hurry, and was hastening home. He told me he had been to a birthday party at his aunt's."

"At his aunt's," echoed Mr. Blake. "Well, that's an important point, for I happen to know that his aunt, Mrs. Graves, is out of town. She visited the bank yesterday morning and drew some money for her traveling expenses. She informed me that she expected to be gone a week or more."

"I knew it, I knew it!" shouted Rob. "That fellow ought to be in jail.

He'll land there yet."

"Softly, softly, my boy," said Mr. Blake. "This is a grave affair, and we cannot jump at conclusions."

"I'd jump him," declared Rob, "if I only knew for certain that he was the thief!"

"I will inform the police myself and have an investigation made," Mr.

Blake promised. "We will leave no stone unturned to find out who has been guilty of such an outrage."

"And in the meantime the Eagle Patrol will carry on an investigation of its own," declared Rob st.u.r.dily. "What do you say, boys?"

"I'll bet every boy in the corps is with you on that," rejoined Merritt heartily.

"Same here," chimed in Hiram.

"The first step is to take a run to Topsail Island and see if all the queer things that happened last night have not some connecting link between them," suggested Mr. Blake. "I am inclined, after what you boys have told me, to think that they have."

"I am sure of it," echoed Rob.

CHAPTER IX

THE HYDROPLANE QUEERLY RECOVERED